On the eve of September’s Opening Convocation, a warm and humid Sunday
when parents could still be seen carrying heavy objects into dorm rooms,
Dean of the College Maud Mandel and President Christina Paxson
addressed first-year students and their families on the College Green.
In between their remarks, Undergraduate Council of Students
president—and BAM social media intern—Maahika Srinivasan ’15 offered one
of the few speeches not delivered over Labor Day weekend and Opening
Convocation by a member of the Brown administration. After the Sunday
speeches, the Brown Daily Herald asked a few first-years for their
reaction. They said that, while they appreciated the Paxson and Mandel
remarks, it was Srinivasan’s speech that most resonated with them. After
reading it, you’ll see why:

Hi Class of 2018! My name is Maahika Srinivasan and I’m the president
of the Undergraduate Council of Students, the mouthful of a term we
have at Brown for the Student Government.

Mark Ostow

"The gripping fear of not knowing," Srinivasan says, "pushed me to carve my path of discovery."

I’m here today to wholeheartedly welcome both you and your
families to Brown and to perhaps share a little advice that I’ve picked
up along my roller-coaster journey through this institution over the
last three years.

But here’s the real deal—the cross-my-eyes, pinky-swear truth. When I
sat down to write this speech, I ended up staring at a blank Word
document for a whole week, trying to concoct the perfect pearl of
wisdom that would make your Brown experience “significant.”

And after those seven days, I came to this resounding conclusion: I don’t know.

I have no clue what zingy pieces of guidance to share with you about
successfully molding your Brown experience, because, to be honest, I’m
still knee-deep in shaping my own. And if you were to ask me ten years
from now, when I’ll likely be miles away from this campus, this
community, and the incredible memories they’ve given me, I’ll probably
still be trying to figure just how to make my Brown experience
meaningful in the grander scheme of my life.

So that’s what I’ve realized I want to share with you today: that it’s okay not to know.

Consider this: You’ve all just finished confidently (and successfully)
packaging your years of academic, extracurricular, and personal
passions into little bites of 250 words or less. You all wrote
beautifully crafted responses to college application questions like
“Why are you drawn to certain areas of study?” “What community do you
most identify with?” and: “Why Brown?”

And maybe, just between you and me (and the hundreds of other people
sitting here today), you realize, like I did, that those 250 words were
just the beginning. Your Brown experience will be a dedicated search
for those additional thousands of words that describe your academic
passions, the communities you belong to, the reasons why you picked
Brown.

And that’s okay.

It’s okay not to have any idea what on earth the V-Dub is. It’s okay
not to, for the life of you, remember the names of the last five people
who introduced themselves to you. Or for you to have no idea how
shopping period works—and no, I am not referring to a trip to the mall.

Three years ago I sat where you are and I was terrified. I was
terrified of leaving my family, my home country, and the safe cocoon
that was my high school, a place in which I knew exactly who I was,
what I was good at, and where I belonged. Now, at Brown, amidst a sea
of new faces, the more terrifying prospect I faced was the uncertainty
of who I’d become and what course I’d chart to get there.

And guess what? Even after countless classes in a wide range of
disciplines, phenomenal extracurriculars, the most supportive friends,
and guidance from advisers, there’s still so much I don’t know. I mean,
luckily I have learned enough to tell you that the V-Dub is the
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall over on that side of campus.

But what I am undoubtedly sure of is that, at least for me, the
gripping fear of not knowing pushed me to carve my path of discovery at
Brown.

As a part of our rich 250-year history, we celebrate with great zeal
our entrance to and exit from Brown with the momentous walks through
the Van Wickle Gates. But if you ask me, what we should really be
celebrating is all that time in between those steps—the time you spend
physically on and off campus navigating college to find answers to your
questions.

Because in trying to figure out the answers to my own doubts and
questions, I took risks. I tried something new—an obscure class or an
unexpected extracurricular. I failed at a lot of it. Like, really
spectacularly failed. But I stopped trying to puzzle out everything on
my own, and I started reaching out for help—I talked to my Meiklejohn,
my academic adviser, some of my professors, and upperclassmen. I
stopped blabbering, trying to fake my confidence to everyone, including
myself. And I started listening more.

Hearing my peers’ stories, I discovered that Brown is a magnet for
those who are still questioning everything. The Open Curriculum is
founded on the premise that incoming students may not yet know what
makes them tick and hence should have the freedom and independence to
explore and find out.

In learning that I wasn’t alone, I started feeling a little more
comfortable in my discomfort. I was able to be honest about how
confused I really was. Because I was challenging myself to try
different routes and opening myself up to new people, I started to
experience a fulfillment that I wouldn’t have found had someone just
handed me the answers.

I guarantee you that across the country every student eagerly awaiting
a “fresh start” in college is scared. But what differentiates you all,
as Brunonians, is your inherent willingness to take risks. You all have
the unique ability to convert that commonly shared fear into fodder for
scholarly and personal discovery.

In fact, you took what probably was your biggest risk to date by
committing to Brown, a process that made you stop to question what you
value. But I promise you, what makes Brown worth that risk is the
support networks and “safety nets” that will help you up every time you
take a chance and fall. It’s with those helping hands that you’ll build
your own personal support webs that will carry you far past your years
at Brown.

So, in the end, all I’m trying to say is this: Don’t worry if you have
a ton of questions, concerns, and doubts. That’s why you’re here—to
figure it out. And although the path you’ll carve to find your answers
will have its own distinct shape and direction, you’ll have an adviser
or a professor just an e-mail away, a friend just a sympathetic phone
call away, and countless others to help mold it.

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